In Recent News...

Hello, readers.

It's been awhile since I've posted anything, largely due to school and fishing, but it's about time I hopped back on the wagon.

I'm out in New York at the moment, having driven out here in my new 2013 Tacoma (named Forrest) to pick up some furniture and things from my mother's house to replace some stuff at my newish house in Colorado. It's been quite the trip for a variety of reasons, many of which I won't go into, but I've thoroughly enjoyed myself.

My visit to my roommate's old cottage on the New York side of Lake Ontario was a particular pleasure, full of good company, beautiful scenery, wonderful scotch (15 year Balvenie) and the opportunities to fish new waters. I had the interesting experience of catching a decent-sized Gar (not sure what variety) on a fly rod - pretty cool!

I recently purchased a new radar detector to replace my old, dead Escort Passport 8500 X50 that I've owned since high school. That thing got me through a lot of shit, but it unfortunately gave up the ghost during my last cross-country road trip. Anyway, after my recent, easily preventable 84-in-a-65 speeding ticket (2 points, $167 fine, no biggie), I decided that I could no longer wait to purchase a detector. Now, at this point you might say, "But Mountain Man - couldn't you just slow down?" To which I answer, no, I cannot. I feel obligated to go real fast and turn real left at every opportunity, and if you drive like I do, $500 is a small investment to prevent being groped by the long, bacon-y arm of the law. But I digress. I bought an Escort Redline, which has all the bells, whistles, jingles, etc., including a 16 mile (!) range. After having thoroughly, um, tested it, I have determined that it is worthy of the Mountain Man Stamp of Approval. Seriously, if you have a lead foot and don't want to get Real Jammed Up by el policia, buy this fucking thing.

I also recently got my Blancpain Aqua Lung Hundred Hours (that's a mouthful, isn't it?) back from the wonderful watch elves at Roland G. Murphy's repair shop (more about them shortly). They serviced, lubricated, fixed, cleaned, and polished my favorite piece of man-jewelry until it looked brand new, charged me $555, and sent it back to me in around 8 weeks. It now actually keeps time, on top of being extremely pretty.

The reason I chose the aforementioned firm, RGM, is that they are the only legitimate American watchmaker in existence. From their shop in Pennsylvania, they create the only in-house movements inside our borders - and they do it well. They also have a unique talent for taking vintage American pocket watch movements, refurbishing and cleaning them, and inserting them into wrist watch cases of their own design. My brother had one (a Senator) with a '40s Hamilton hand-wound movement, and it was one of the most beautiful horological creations I've seen (second to my Blancpain and my mom's white gold Patek Phillipe Calatrava, of course). Anyway, they were chosen because my Blancpain has a rather unique ultra-slim self-winding Piaget movement (made in the same building as Audemars Piquet's) for which parts may or may not be available. Due to their unmatched (on this continent) talents, they're able to craft replacement parts to replace worn-out or broken components. Considering the watch hadn't been serviced in at least 7 years and likely never, half a grand was a small price to pay for such services. Kudos to those guys!

Alas, I've got to wake up soon for an unfortunately busy day of picking up trailers, getting my truck serviced, packing shit, and hopefully seeing some people I like. Goodnight folks, it's been nice to write at you.

-The Modern Mountain Man